Longhorns Fan Forums Bleeding Orange Over Season Loss

Longhorns fans are asking questions and pointing fingers in the wake of Thursday's season ending loss to Texas A&M.

Photo by Nathan Bernier for KUT News

Fans of the University of Texas football team got a punch in the gut on Thanksgiving Thursday when their hopes to compete in a bowl game were erased by a 24-17 loss to Texas A&M. Now some fans are getting riled up online over the Longhorns' first losing season since 1997.

"Is it time to say thanks [head coach Mack Brown] for the 13 years and go get a Jim Harbaugh from Stanford and make a cultural change down here and bring some toughness?" asks texas10 on forums.hookem.com.

The media won't be able to serve as proxies for angry forum users and grill Mack Brown on Texas' performance today. That's because the head coach is not holding his regular Monday morning press briefing.

Brown did publicly acknowledge his disappointment. KXAN reported on it shortly after the loss to A&M:

"I thought we'd come out of the National Championship game okay," Brown said. "It seemed like there was a hangover. I said after the first scrimmage of the year, and I said at Rice, I walked out of there mad. There were some things that were flawed. I've got to figure out what we missed. What happened, that's the coaches job, that's my job.

"Why didn't they play with emotion early; why didn't we play better; why didn't we move the ball and score points like we have; why did we give up too many big plays on defense; why was our kicking game inconsistent when we had really good players and I thought it would be the best we ever had? Those are things that are puzzling and are on my shoulders to look at."

University of Texas’ associate athletic director for football operations Cleve Bryant has taken a leave of absence while UT officials investigate what only being described as “an accusation” made against him.